Creolization

Every sport that has been played has developed significantly and has been spread throughout the world. Soccer is the world’s most popular sport. It is a national sport of most European and Latin-American countries, and of many other nations. Millions of people in more than 140 countries play soccer. A game similar to soccer was being played as a sport happening in China during the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. In China, it was during the Han dynasty that people dribbled leather balls by kicking it into a small net. Recorded facts also support the fact that Romans and Greeks used to play a game in which two teams tried to score by advancing the ball across a line on the field. The players passed the ball to one another but did not kick it.
It is said that the modern soccer played today grew during the early 1800’s many English schools played a game that resembled soccer. The players added many rules that changed the game as it developed, but each school interpreted the rules differently. In 1848, an association of school representatives met at Trinity College in Cambridge and drew up the first set of soccer rules. In 1863, representatives of English soccer clubs founded the Football Association, soccer began to spread throughout the world in the late 1800’s. By 1900, associations had been established in Belgium, Chile, Demark, Italy, The Netherlands and Switzerland. In 1904, the national associations founded the (FIFA) Federation Internationale de Football Association. The Canadian Soccer Association was established in 1912, and the United States Soccer Federation was set up in 1913. In 1930, the first World Cup Championship was played in Montevideo, Uruguay. Since then, the World Cup has been held every four years except during World War II (1939-1945), when the games were suspended.
The first professional soccer league in the United States, the American Soccer League, was formed in 1921 but disbanded in 1929. The present American Soccer League was founded in 1931. The North American Soccer League was established in 1967. During the 1970’s soccer in the United States grew tremendously as a spectator and participant sport. As this sport spread, the FIFA World Cup became more and more important. It is said that this is the worlds most widely viewed sporting event. My family is from Colombia a country in which everyone plays soccer in their free time. In Colombia the term for soccer is “futbol” and it is often confused for American Football since they sound so much alike. Even though the breakdown of the origin of soccer is so long, FIFA is known worldwide. Every four years this event takes place in a different part of the world. The last World Cup took place last year in South Africa where Spain was the winner and the anthem song of the game was sung by Shakira. Overall this sport has developed rapidly and is now one of the most played and viewed sport considering that there are teams from all over the world representing their countries.

3 responses so far ↓

I think it is very evident to see how the game of soccer has changed through the years. Playing soccer, i really took an interest to this post and could connect to it. People in America think that baseball or football is the most popular sport in the world simply becuase everywhere we turn in the U.S there is a baseball field or football field, they tend to foget people play soccer in every country of the globe. I think the sport will always progress. It gained popularity in the 70’s due to the superstars that came to play in the U.S for the Cosmos (Pele, Beckenbauer). Now with stars such as Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo, Eto and many more i am very confident that soccer/futbol will be around for ceturies to come.

I think that this post is very interesting. Around the world, soccer is an extremely popular sport. As stated in the post, a similar game to soccer was being played in China as early as the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. But in the United States, soccer only began to popularize in the 1970s.

I believe that even though soccer is more popular now than it once was, soccer is still not as popular as the other sports we have here in the United States. From personal experience, I have only heard about team USA whenever the team is playing in the FIFA World Cup. I think that people who have come to live in the United States from other countries (who are soccer fans back home) bring that excitement here. Even with team USA playing in the World Cup, I see more people cheering on foreign teams, rather than team USA.

This is a very interesting post. Soccer really is a popular sport around the world, and some countries are crazy for the sport as here in the U.S., we would be for football or basket ball. Working in Times Square, i came across all the tourist that are crazy for the FIFA world cup, amd how they stay in bars all night watching the game and celebrate on the streets if their country won. However, i do not think U.S., is crazy for soccer as other countries would be, and this is very unfortunate.